jsaylor

The new Ford Kuga starts at 20,495 pounds on the road according to Ford. To put that into perspective the base Mondeo rings in at 15,195 while the base Focus retractable hardtop rings in at 17,045. In fact, the Kuga will rank as the most expensive car, per base price, in the entire UK lineup with the next most expensive vehicle, the Galaxy mini-van, coming in some 3,000 pounds less at 17,495 to start. For me this is an absolute jaw dropper...if Ford brought this over to our shores I would expect the base price to be close to 30k U.S. given the figures above.

http://media.ford.com/newsroom/release

Hollywood_North GT

Well, if you subtract the 17.5% VAT, it would bring it down to a proportionately competitive level over here. But, look, here's the thing: It's more than likely that any Euro models that Ford elects to bring across the pond will actually be built on our shores for the North American market, or more specifically, in Mexico. I believe this is the strategy to be employed with the Fiesta.

A Mexican Fiesta. Hmmm... there's irony for you.

And why not? The Fusion had the highest initial customer satisfaction rating of any Ford ever made in "North America". Better quality, lower manufacturing costs. If Ford wants to stay competitive, it'll have to go this route more and more, sooner or later.

jsaylor

Without doubt, the large amount of variables involved in taking a vehicle currently manufactured in Europe for the European market and extrapolating from that what it might cost were it to be manufactured here for our market means that any guess on what our price for said product would be is exactly that...a guess. Even so, compared to other European market Fords this is a pricey little sucker. A base price that is a third again above that of a Mondeo is a bit of a shocker to me since, relatively speaking, that is a lot for a cute-ute from a mainstream brand.

For example, if we assume for a moment that the Mondeo and Kuga would convert into American dollars on relatively even terms then, if the Mondeo were to start at 21k or so which seems like a fairly reasonable number assuming domestic manufacture, the Kuga would be a 28k truck to start given the existing price difference between them in the UK. Of course that pricing relationship might change were it to come over here due to any number of variables, but then it might not. And if it didn't, and the reality were found to be that this is just an expensive little bugger to produce, I don't like it's chances for success here.

As for Mexican manufacturing....the quality and efficiency of the same is it relates to the Fusion, etc is undeniable. I for one would be extremely curious to know just how much of an issue that was during recent UAW negotiations since the UAW's argument has always been that the added productivity and quality of domestically built cars (as opposed to Mexico, etc) manufactured by UAW workers was worth the added costs........they certainly cannot say that now.

RCSignals

UAW can just organise in Mexico to solve their dilema